Rock Throwers ....

If you think the cards are not stacked against us wait until you hear what has happened ... Paul went down go the tags and everything transferred on the truck. On the way home from The Company on route 422 a rock was put right through his drivers window. Smashed it to pieces. Paul had glass in his eyes and cuts all over his face and hands.


This is an inside view with the truck hood up to block glare

It was scarey to see Paul walk through this door with blood all over him. I hear this stuff, but it don't happen to us. Just one of those things where we say that happens to other people not to us and then it's put at your door.

There is no doubt this thing was shot with a sling-shot. Paul didn't even call the police. I made him do that because someone needs to be made aware of this. Thank goodness for the other driver who stopped to check on Paul because there was a witness. The police took a report over the phone. Gave that drivers name to verify it all.


This is an outside view of the windshield. Amazing how much different it is.


I was all besides myself. One of those things where you just want to drop to your knees and cry. You want to go sleep and hope when you wake up you'll find you are in a new world. Or it didn't happen at all.

I was extremely upset. But now I'm mad. Mad is putting it mild trust me ... I'm going through the roof. I will be on the phone and writing letters all week long. I'm fed up with this junk! I was scared. Yeah I've been scared before but this is the closest I ever came to actually losing my husband because of stupid crap out there on the highways. The things that flashed through my mind gave me the chills .....

Well he'll be ok. Went to the doc and he did have glass fragments in his right eye. Doc was able to get the pieces out without bothering the eye. He gave Paul some drops to put in his eyes and told him he will need to wear sun glasses to drive because that sun will hurt his eyes.

I'm not natured to go down and quit. I was ready to give everything up that day. And I do mean everything. Then the longer I sat here and thought about it the madder I got. I said, damn this business and damn if I am going to let it take us down. So I got this burst of energy and anger in me ... And when I get mad I gain strength. I watched Paul break and I can't handle that. He was scared to death.

He still has no clue how he kept that truck on the road or from hitting anyone. He lost all vision for split second and had to try to find some focus on things enough to get that truck on the side of the road.

He said when he got out of that truck all you could hear was ting ting of glass falling every where off him. It was all through his hair, his clothes and everything. It even implanted it's self into the material of his shirt and into his face. It was a hard hit. I told Paul hang in there ... we'll get through this. You are a damn good driver, you are a hard worker and we're not going to let these people, industry and this damn business make you look bad no matter what. Just hang in there, I'm in your corner and we'll work this all out.

We really lucked out after that. He did get the windshield replaced and it wasn't as bad as I thought or should I say as we both thought it would be. They replaced the windshield, and replaced the inspection sticker and with that a labor it was only $59.00. He had to of had his guardian angel with him, because where that hit had it manage to get all the way through it would have nailed him right over his left eye brow. If he'd of moved left it would of got the right side of his face and had he ducked it would have got him on the top of his head. It was just to quick for him to react. The glass was shattered all the way to the bunk of the truck and embedded it's self into the bunk wall. I'm considering ourselves pretty lucky considering how bad this could have all turned out. It could of really turned ugly.

International who put the window in said they have never ever seen anything like this. The guy looked Paul straight in the face and said you are one lucky man unless I'm standing here talking to a dead person. This guy could not believe what he was seeing and that Paul only came out with scratches and cuts. None of us can understand how Paul came out of that so lucky with a few scratches. Scarey to think he almost lost his life or maybe his eye sight.



What's The Solution to the problem?

I don't know how this would work with other areas, but here in my own school district I have talked to the principal about the problem and suggested that we find a way to let children know the seriousness of their games. That the games they sometimes choce to play can either kill or injure someone seriously. It was agreed on that I would write out a small flyer and it will be distributed among the school children at the return of school in Aug. 1998.

I found a local solution to maybe getting the problem recognized. Maybe this method will work with other districts as well? How can we know and make changes if we don't at least try? Seems to me we are all we have and that we have to go to what ever lengths we can to get awareness to a lot of the problems and dangers out there on our highways. The media, papers and government aren't going to do it for us. So we have to find a way to get attention out there on our own. All this just my line of thinking. It don't mean you have to agree with me.

All the truckers magazines and papers are GREAT!, but their not reaching the right people. Truckers read truckers books, magazines and papers. We need to get our word to the people outside the industry about the dangers and hazzards that we are faced with.



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